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Cultivated Reef

The Mini Dream Tank- back at it after 4 years!


bbales

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Oh how I have missed my tanks! While I was living in FL going to The University of Tampa, majoring in Marine Science - Bio I had 3 tanks (link in my signature). These tanks were all huge learning experiences and I had a lot of success (and failure too!). This forum has played a huge role in all of my tanks and I know this one will be no different! Thank you everyone! Now 4 years after graduation and back in my hometown in Maryland, I have decided it is time! The nearest coral stores are over an hour away, so the stocking is going very slowly, which I think is setting this tank up for a great future!

 

The Setup!

 

Tank: JBJ Nano Cube RL Rimless Biotope Aquarium - 8 Gallon

Sand: Carribsea Arrag Alive Special Grade Reef

Live Rock: "Real Reef Rock" painted rock

Filtration: inTank with filter floss, chemipure, purigen

Lighting: Radion xr15w pro w/reeflink

Heating: Eheim Jager TruTemp 50 Watt

Pumps: mp10wes quiet drive

ATO: Tunze nano osmolator nano with kalkwasser

Salt: Reef Crystals

RO/DI: AquaticLife RO Buddie 3-Stage Reverse Osmosis System w/ Mixed Bed Resin DI Cartridge

 

Maintenance

 

Water changes every 1-2 weeks, 25% (2 gal)

No dosing other than kalkwasser at the moment

 

Livestock:

 

Fish:

No fish as of right now, thinking of either a yasha goby pistol shrimp pair or 3 barnacle blennies

 

Inverts:

6 hermits, 2 snails

Orange pistol shrimp

 

Corals:

Frogspawn (purple w/green tip

Orange yumas

Zoanthids (watermelon)

Orange Monti Cap

Jedi Mind Trick Monti

GSP

Blue sympodium

Orange ricordea

Tri-color Validia

ORA Red Planet

 

Let me know what yall think! Good to be back! =)

 

 

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This looks interesting! I will be following along :) You are right in that this forum can be super helpful and influence and make your tank experiences just that much better. Love this place :happy:

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Thank you! :D I have a DSLR so I will post some better pics soon!

I always love a build thread with high quality photos. Everyone loves pictures haha

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I had a mini heart attack! I came home one day and saw my temp was 73.9! My tank is usually 79-80 so this was a huge swing. I also notice my ATO had not been working. Upon investigation I must have hit the power strip switch to off when vacuuming 2 days prior! My salinity was high and my temp was low. I topped off with fresh slowly and the temp came back up slowly. All is okay! Hooray! I need to be more careful!

 

Ever since starting using kalkwasser for my ATO my corals have been growing like crazy! I love it, so much better than dosing the 2 part as I used to do on my tanks in the past.

 

Still haven't figured out what fish to add and haven't made it back to the coral shop (its over an hour drive!) to add more corals.

 

I did use 1 treatment of flatworm exit, and it was very effective, however I plan to do it again as there are more showing up. I kind of freaked out a bit with the treatment when I started seeing just how many there were dying, and did a water change very shortly after treatment. This time I will give it a little more time and make sure I use the turkey baster to get into the crevices of the rock (I think many found refuge).

 

Anyways, I will post some pics shortly. You will be able to see the incredible growth! I have a new head of frogspawn, a new baby yuma, probably 20-30 more zoas, and about a 1/2 inch on the monti cap!

 

=)

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  • 5 months later...

Okay here is a picture-less update for anyone caring to follow along!

 

Went to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend trip this past weekend. Managed to get out right before the flooding! On the way back up the road I stopped into a store in Richmond called Tiki Corals. I was pleasantly surprised! Great selection, very tidy and clean, staff was helpful and friendly, and prices were fair!

 

I picked up:

 

high fin goby...I am an idiot and didn't think he would jump... fail R.I.P, he was eating so well too =(

orange pistol shrimp... once I get a screen top I may get another goby

jedi mind trick monti

tricolor validia

red planet

orange ricordea

sympodium

gsp

some hermits and snails

 

The orange moni that I originally had is huge now, but quite pale, so I recently cut my lights down to 35% to see if that was the issue. The zoas have spread like crazy but are small and not opening fully, going to try some flatworm exit before the next water change as I have noticed a few on the glass, maybe they are bothering them? My calcium level is 320, even right after a water change, so I am looking into this... thought it was good since the growth rate has been good in my monti, but not much coralline growth so that makes sense.

 

I did a water change as I was adding the new corals, and as I usually do, I unplugged my heater for a bit. I filled the tank back up and everything was honkey dory, until I started to notice the temperature was 81.2 which seemed high since my room temp was in the upper 60's and it didn't even reach above 80 during the summer months when the room temp was close to 80... so I turned down my temperature on the heater and monitored it, it still climed! My Eheim Jager 50W heater had failed in the on position! Thank god I was monitoring it! I pulled the heater, ran to petco and grabbed a cheap one that has been working well as a quick fix. I ordered the finnex 100W heater online and paid for next day delivery (today) as well as a temperature alarm that will signal high and low thresholds. The corals seemed stressed as the temps were close to 82 but now at 78 everything seems much happier. My zoas are still small though, hoping to figure out whats bothering them soon...

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now dont quote me on this but ive heard your calcium level is supposed to be around 400-500 ppm. That is what my LFS has theirs at and everything is growing well and all the zoas are nice and open could that be the problem?

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I don't think zoas would be small with a lack of calcium, but maybe...? They do not have hard skeletons, and the SPS are all happy but I am looking to increase my calcium, my suspicion is that my reef crystals salt mix is lacking in calcium, testing tonite. My goal for calcium is definitely in the 400-500 range. Yesterday after bringing the temperature down to 78 and salinity down to 1.024 instead of 1.025/6 and decreasing my light intensity seemed to me that the zoas were more open, time will tell on this one... thanks for your input!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Okay so the tank is doing great. The algae is almost completely gone thanks to the cuc and good husbandry. I finally got calibration liquid for the refractometer and feel confident about my salinity levels now. I am maintaining 1.025 very consistantly with the ATO. My reef crystals mix at 1.025 is mixing at 380-400... which is substantially lower than what is quoted on the bucket, may consider switching when this bucket is done... Decreasing the light intensity has done wonders for the zoas and mushrooms, and I think I will see my sps color up more and more. I have seen very fast growth in my sps even with the lower calcium levels... on top of having my ATO with kalkwasser I am now dosing part A of the 2 part in order to get my calcium levels up. I have been dosing part A only for the past week since my alkalinity is staying between 8-12 and ph between 8.2-8.4. I am hoping that I will reach a balance here soon and can dose equal parts (any suggestions here would be awesome). The temperature in the tank has been steady 78-79 and I love the alarm set up I have now as peace of mind. The tri color validia is growing but has lost some color, hoping that colors back up soon. I really need to find a mesh top for this tank or make one myself... so that I can get a fish for the people who come over and don't understand why I would have a tank without one. I really need to get some better pics of the tank but I will post an iphone pic later.

 

Thanks for stopping by! =)

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What were you running the radion at before vs now? I know they are very nice and powerful lights and on a small tank like this i would see how you might accidentally overpower the light.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What were you running the radion at before vs now? I know they are very nice and powerful lights and on a small tank like this i would see how you might accidentally overpower the light.

 

I set this tank up with the radion, but overtime I have scaled it down to just 35% brightness and things seem to be much happier. This tank is growing like crazy right now and I am having a hard time keeping up with the calcium demands with just the ato kalkwasser, and weekly / bi weekly water changes. I realized my reef crystals are pretty weak in the calcium content, so after this bucket I will be switching to something with higher calcium content.

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Thank you! =) This tank is almost a year old now! Definitely the slowest I have ever taken things but it makes me enjoy the process even more. Cheers!

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  • 7 months later...

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